


His First Case

by elephantfootprints



Series: His Whole World [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, John is Sherlock's father, Kid Fic, Kid Sherlock, Not actually case fic, The case is basically entirely skipped in favour of schoompy stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1983075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephantfootprints/pseuds/elephantfootprints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock had quite sensibly decided to put off becoming a detective until he was of an age (and a height) that would allow him to do so more easily than one could at 12, but his careful plans must be put aside when he inconveniently uncovers a murder that New Scotland Yard refuse to acknowledge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His First Case

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to lie, there's no real reason for [His Whole World](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1126075) to have a sequel, but here it is nonetheless. Enjoy the unabashed fluff!

“John,” Sherlock hissed urgently, shaking John’s shoulder until his eyes opened.

“Sherlock?” John said, sitting up and reaching out to hold Sherlock’s shoulders. “Are you okay? If you’ve been playing with acids again, show me where it hurts and I’ll yell at you later.”

“No, I’m fine,” Sherlock said, and John relaxed. “You know how I want to be a detective?”

John yawned and shuffled over in the bed, pulling back the covers. “Hop in, if we’re going to do career counselling at-” John glanced at the alarm clock, “two-thirty in the morning, you might as well be warm. Mary’s not off shift until eight.”

“I know,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes pointedly before sliding in next to John. “I’m hardly going to burst into your room in the middle of the night if I wasn’t sure you and Mary weren’t-”

John clamped his hand over Sherlock’s mouth. “Don’t you dare, you’re not allowed to even think about sex until you’re forty.”

Sherlock pushed John’s hand away. “I’ve known about sexual intercourse since I was seven.”

“Yes, but now you are nearly thirteen and that means no more thinking about sex,” John said. “It’s the rule, okay? As far as you know, kissing is something reserved for adults, along with voting and mortgages.”

“Beyond it’s place as a motivating factor for crime, I have no interest in sex,” Sherlock informed John.

“Crime, good.” John nodded. “You said something about being a detective?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said. “I wasn’t planning on getting into it formally until I had acquired a greater depth of knowledge of the legal system in Britain and a degree in chemistry, but needs must.”

“Needs must?” John frowned, lifting a hand to brush back Sherlock’s unruly fringe.

“I’m afraid I’ve uncovered a murder.”

*

Becoming a detective had been a decision Sherlock had made carefully, with great consideration and enormous amounts of research. Not so had it been with his former aspiration of piracy. To Sherlock, the life of a buccaneer had infinite appeal. There was of course the hat, the sword, the peg leg and hooked hand. Pirates followed no rules and didn’t have to go to school and interact with other children. They didn’t even have to go to the dentist. John would of course come with him, and there would be no reason for them to be separated, no reason for their adventuring to be interrupted by chores or phone calls or extra shifts. 

To say that finding that being a pirate was not a viable career option was deeply disappointing would be an understatement, but Sherlock had borne it as best he could and turned his great mind to trying to come up with a suitable alternative. It took him a long time to find something that would afford him the same flexibility of hours, opportunity to dress in dramatic outfits, would not require him to suffer fools or follow rules. He wanted to find something that would keep him engaged, something that wasn’t boring, something that wouldn’t grow monotonous. And something he could do with John.

*

“Mary,” Sherlock said calmly, sitting at the kitchen table, ignoring the scrambled eggs John had placed in front of him. “Do sit down.”

“Sherlock?” Mary asked, glancing between Sherlock and John. “What’s wrong?”

“Eggs?” Sherlock offered, pushing his plate towards Mary. John grabbed the plate and tugged it back at Sherlock. Why, Sherlock couldn’t quite fathom. Ordinarily, Sherlock was content to endure John’s endless need to ply him with food and insist he attend school and sleep for several hours every night, but this morning was clearly _different_. Sherlock could hardly be expected to pretend to care about John’s insistence of breakfast when there was a _murder_ to be solved.

“John? What’s going on?” Mary said, sitting down cautiously next to Sherlock.

“Murder!” Sherlock said happily. “One the imbeciles at Scotland Yard managed to miss, even after I sent them a letter explaining how they were morons, which means that I am clearly going to have to move my plans for being a detective up a few years.”

“John?” Mary said again, looking to him for an explanation. John shrugged.

“Apparently Sherlock has been busy,” John said, giving Sherlock a wry smile. “Sherlock, why don’t you let Mary know what you’ve been up to?”

Sherlock leaned forward, a manic gleam in his eye as he began to explain.

*

Story telling was one of Sherlock’s favourite pastimes.

“It was fairly obvious that Mr Hendrickson was having an affair, as evidenced by the packet of chewing gum he has taken to carrying around to mask the scent of his smoking mistress, and the decadent tie reflecting his newfound sense of self-worth after years in a dead end job and a loveless marriage.”

People sometimes complained about Sherlock’s storytelling.

“But Sherlock,” his teachers would gently encourage. “How does Mrs Hendrickson feel about this?”

“I told you, his jacket shows evidence of old repairs done carefully, and newer patches that don’t even match the pattern of the twill,” Sherlock would say, slowly and condescendingly.

“Oh my _god_ , Sherlock,” his peers would whine. “I was just wondering why Jill isn’t allowed to have people over anymore.”

“It’s fairly obvious from the faint smell of smoke on Jill’s jacket that she has confronted her father’s lover and her father has punished her for it,” Sherlock would explain.

“Jesus Christ, who is this kid?” parents would wail. “And what the hell do you know about my husband’s mistress?”

“That she apparently where’s the same shoe size as you,” Sherlock would reply, ducking swiftly through the gate when he saw Jill marching up to misplace some of her anger on his face, as Pete had tried to do the week before.

None of it mattered one jot to Sherlock, though. Not the attempts at correction, nor the complaints that he was boring, nor the distinct lack of appreciation for his efforts, not even the occasional bursts of violence thrown his way.

“That’s brilliant!” John would say, making Sherlock squirm with pride. “Ash on the bottom of the shoe. Would it be enough for you to work out the brand of cigarettes Hendrickson’s secret girlfriend smoked?”

None of it mattered in the slightest, because _John_ loved Sherlock’s stories. And that was more than enough for Sherlock.

*

“My god, Sherlock,” Mary said. “You got all of that from a pair of shoes no one mentioned?”

Sherlock shrugged with deliberate insouciance, his mouth curling with pleasure. “It was the fact they went unmentioned that told me something was wrong.”

“John? Are you hearing this?” Mary asked. “I mean, I knew he was a genius, but how many people read that article and without it ever crossing their minds to consider that a pair of shoes were missing. How many police went over the scene without noticing something was wrong?" 

John grinned at Sherlock, shaking his head. “They say parenthood is full of surprises, but I’m not sure this is what they meant.” John leaned over to ruffled Sherlock’s hair. 

*

John often said that Sherlock’s surprising nature was one of his favourite things about Sherlock. According to John, this had been the case since their very first meeting.

The first thing John had noticed about Sherlock, the story went, was how very still and how very quiet he was. The woman who had handed Sherlock over to John’s care had one hand resting on one of Sherlock’s impossibly small and thin shoulders, and was explaining something to John about the difficulty they had tracking him down, or the cousin Sherlock had been staying with, or she might be talking about the price of caviar for all John was taking in. The salient details he already knew, that he had a son, and now that salient detail was standing in front of him and John felt like his whole world had shrunk down to the three feet and two and half stone of Sherlock in front of him. Sherlock’s silence seemed deafening to John, drowning out the sound of talking that was singularly failing to tell him anything of import. Anything that would tell him something of substance about this tiny, dark haired, almost ghostly pale creature in front of him. Anything that would tell him something about his little boy and why the universe would ever keep his child, keep his baby from him.

“Hello Sherlock,” John said, crouching down to match Sherlock’s height, not caring at that moment if cut the Queen off, let alone the woman who seemed determined to tell him nothing and keep him from Sherlock. “I’m your father. Your dad. Your daddy.”

“Your name is John,” Sherlock replied, his voice soft, but far more confident than John had expected. “You didn’t know I existed. You’re going to be a doctor.”

“That’s right,” John said. “What else have they told you about me?”

Sherlock shook his head and hunched his shoulders. “They just said I was going to go and live with my ‘daddy’.”

John swallowed the urge to laugh. Sherlock managed to say ‘daddy’ so contemptuously, his little nose lifting with almost aristocratic distain.

“How did you know the rest of it?” John asked. Sherlock scowled and curled into himself further still.

“I’m not stupid,” Sherlock said. “She said your name when you opened the door.” Sherlock pointed over to John;s cluttered coffee table. You have a pile of doctor stuff on your coffee table, but you can’t be a doctor yet, because you have books open and are taking notes like kids do in school, so you must be at uni-ver-”

“University,” John supplied, when Sherlock glared and flushed red. “And how did you know I didn’t know you existed?”

Sherlock shrugged. “You look at me like someone looks at a really good present.”

John felt his eyes well, but he beamed at Sherlock and opened his arms, hoping Sherlock would want a cuddle because John wanted to wrap himself around Sherlock and never let him go again. “That was ruddy amazing.”

Sherlock straightened slightly, cautious hope lighting his eyes. “Really?”

“Really? Christ, Sherlock, you’re four years old and I’ve only known you for five minutes, but I think you might be the most brilliant person I’ve ever met.”

A tiny grin was flashed in response to this, and John found himself with an armful of a wriggling and happily chattering Sherlock.

Sherlock, having taken the time to interact with a range of four year olds, not to mention noting the incongruities that arose in each retelling of this story, insisted to John how very unrealistic and overly sentimental this version of their first interaction was, but apparently John found it easier to shrug off Sherlock’s criticisms when Sherlock had wormed his way into John’s arms and Sherlock’s disapproving looks were unable to be seen when his head was buried in the crook of John’s neck.

*

“So what are we going to do?” Mary asked.

“Solve the murder, of course,” Sherlock said. “With any luck the police might have enough sense to listen when adults tell them they have botched their homicide investigation. It’s a pity we need them given how much they will undoubtedly get in my way, but unfortunately citizen’s arrests have very little legal standing in this country.”

“Yes, quite a pity,” John said. “Now finish your breakfast before the shoe thief strikes again.”

*

“No more crime solving until you can shave,” John declared, collapsing onto his chair in exhaustion, four days later. Sherlock ran a hand over his absurdly smooth chin with despair.

“ _No_ crime?” Sherlock said, aghast. “None whatsoever? But what if Mrs Turner’s flat gets broken into again? What if Mary’s best jewellery is stolen? What if someone tries to poison one of your patients? What if I the make us do astronomy in science and my brain is at risk of atrophy?”

John exchanged a serious look with Mary, who was very unsuccessfully muffling a giggle. 

“I’ll make you a deal,” John said. “Until you can shave, the only crimes you can solve are ones that either directly relate to someone you know, and I mean someone you will willingly spend more than ten minutes with, not just anyone you deduce, the crimes can’t be violent in nature, and you will commit no crimes in the name of finding a solution. Finally, you need to let me know everything you are doing, even if you think I won’t understand, and I will come with you to any crime scenes, or to interview witnesses, or whatever it is detectives do. I will be by your side and your partner in this, okay?”

“I suppose I will need an assistant,” Sherlock said, trying not to let his pleasure show. “Your medical knowledge could come in handy.”

“Absolutely,” John said. “And I’m going to need a firsthand account of all of your adventures. If I wrote this stuff down I could make a fortune.”

John winked at Sherlock, who found he could no longer hold in his smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if there will ever be more to this little series, but if there is any part of Sherlock's childhood you would like to see, you're welcome to leave it in the comments, or in my [ask box](http://likeanelephantfootprint.tumblr.com/ask) over at my [tumblr](http://likeanelephantfootprint.tumblr.com/).


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